Opioid Treatment Advocates Get A Funding Boost, But Worry It Isn’t Enough

February 21, 2018

“White House aides and a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill are cheering $6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid crisis in the recently approved budget deal, but treatment advocates and drug policy experts are concerned the uptick in funding won’t be spent wisely and isn’t nearly enough.

Those concerns stem from the tough-on-crime rhetoric that the Trump administration has employed in recent months, leading treatment advocates in states to worry that opioid addiction — something President Donald Trump seized on during the 2016 campaign — will be treated as a law enforcement, not a health, issue. If money is diverted from treatment to tackle crime, advocates said, the already small amount of money going towards the problem will do even less.

A White House official told CNN on Thursday that the Trump administration has told appropriators in Congress, who are now tasked with spending the $6 billion, that they would like to see the influx of cash spent on both treatment and law enforcement priorities.”